To Melt in Winter
by AsSafeAsSnape
Summary: Harry and his friends have a snowball fight, but Draco Malfoy ruins it. And what happens when their most hated professor shows up? I was having a bad day when I decided to write this and it made me happy. Takes part in Harry's third year. I own nothing but the plot, the rest belongs to J.K Rowling


To Melt in Winter

**Hi everyone, this is just a little story I wrote one day at TAFE while I was really bored. It's not anything special and I didn't intend on posting it but AuroraAura11 convinced me to. I was feeling down that day and decided a bit of Harry Potter humour would cheer me up! It takes place during Harry's third year. Here it is;**

Harry, Ron and Hermione shivered as the cold Winter air whipped around them. They had been outside for hours making snow-wizards and snow-trolls, and having amazing snowball fights. Their warm Winter clothes were drenched, but they were too busy enjoying their weekend to care. The snow was great fun!

Before long, the trio were joined by Neville, Ginny, Luna, Dean, Seamus, Fred and George, and even Cho joined in. Within minutes the eleven Hogwarts students had started a massive snowball fight. Fred and George pulled out their wands and made themselves a fort, running to hide behind it, followed by Dean, Seamus and Cho. They immediately started pelting snowballs at the others, who took off behind some trees, failing to dodge the incoming snowballs as they ran.

Harry, Ron and Neville jumped behind a tree to their right, and distracted the other team with their own snowy projectiles, allowing the three girls to hide behind their tree. All the students were having a great time.

The team at the fort was winning because Fred and George decided to cheat, hurling waves of snow into the trees. Harry's team weren't giving up though. Occasionally, Ron, Neville and Ginny would sneak around their own 'tree fort' and pelt snowballs at their opponents' heads.

They were so distracted by their mini war that they didn't notice Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle, Blaise and Pansy slipping through the trees towards them, followed by a few older Slytherins they didn't know.

Out of nowhere, flashes of colour were flying through the air and the sniggering Slytherins emerged, outnumbering the others. Malfoy cast stupefy at Harry who threw up a protective charm, but he couldn't dodge the stinging hex that Goyle cast at him, which hit him in the neck. There were spells flying everywhere! The older Slytherins cast incendio at the fort and melted it, giving Harry the opportunity to hit them from behind, and Cho and Luna took it as an opportunity to run back up to the castle.

The Slytherins were firing spell after spell at them, but the Gryffindor's didn't give in. They were surrounded now, but they were using the trees to their advantage, weaving in and out of them and hiding amongst them. Malfoy, who had been hiding cast another spell at Harry that knocked him down. Crabbe and Goyle began casting spells at Harry while he was laying on the ground. It was hurting him but he was firing back, he wasn't going to let Malfoy the coward ruin his snowball fight and then beat him in a duel. It was just not happening!

Out of nowhere he was surrounded by a shield charm and a loud and menacing 'Enough!' erupted from somewhere to the right of him. Harry noticed that the others were just as surprised as him because all heads shot towards the voice, and their wand hands had dropped to their sides. Harry rolled onto his left side, which wasn't as painful as his right side, and stood up.

It didn't take him long to locate the owner of the menacing voice. He was a cloud of black amongst the white snow, and he did not look happy. "Mr Malfoy", Snape nearly spat as his eyes searched out the antagonist, "Get to my office now, along with anyone else from Slytherin who took part in the fighting. And I know who you are, so if you value your education and your free time, do NOT run off and try to get out of your punishment, otherwise I will come and find you and it will be ten times worse than a few afternoon detentions!" "Go!" he said louder when they were still standing there staring at him like he had gone nuts. As they walked away sulking, they were mumbling and cursing under their breath.

When his Slytherins were out of sight, Snape turned back to the wide-eyed and completely gobsmacked Gryffindors. "Miss Chang and Miss Lovegood informed me of what happened and I know the eleven of you are not to blame. None of you will be punished as you did not start the fight, and only defended yourselves from attack. Harry, Ron, Neville, Hermione, Fred, George, Ginny, Dean and Seamus were shocked beyond belief, this was the first time Snape had not blamed them for something that Malfoy had done. Snape rolled his eyes at the obviously flabbergasted students.

"However, I do not want Mr Malfoy and the rest of my Slytherins to know that you have not been punished as I have my reputation to uphold, is that clear?" Snape nodded his approval at the chorus of 'yes, sir' that followed.

"Was anyone injured in the fighting?" he asked as he glanced at the students. They all observed each other and Hermione and Ginny answered 'no sir' while the others just shook their heads. Snape shook his own head in frustration and viciously slapped his forehead and let out a frustrated sigh. Harry and Ron's jaws dropped at the sight of their sour potions professor face-palming himself. They HAD to giggle!

Snape gave them an exasperated look, which only caused the childish giggling to increase. "Don't be foolish! Merlin, help me. Your idiotic Gryffindor tendencies will be the death of me one day. I can see that at least three of you are bleeding, and I know for a fact that you, Mr Potter, would be in pain." Harry blushed, "I'm fine, sir."

"Stubborn Gryffindors, you're 13 and you've just been duelling with other students, do not lie to me." "Hey, we're not 13!" Fred and George cried out in unison, but Snape just ignored them. "Miss Granger, you're the most sensible student here, who is hurt?" "Umm…Fred, George and I just have a couple of small cuts, so it's just Harry."

"Mr Potter, please come here," Snape said gently. Harry slowly walked to stand in front of his professor and Snape gave him a look that said start talking, but it was also tinged with something else. Was that…concern, in his professor's eyes? Harry looked down nervously at his feet "It was just a stinging hex on my neck and a couple of cutting hexes on my arm."

Snape gently reached for Harry's arm and pulled out his wand to heal it. He then handed the boy a small jar, "Put this on the sting when you dry off, Mr Potter." "Thank you, sir", Harry said gratefully. "That's quite alright. Now that Mr Malfoy won't be giving you any trouble, you should be able to resume your…snowball fight."

Snape turned to leave and George, Fred, Dean and Seamus ran off to start making snowballs, but as they took off, Harry was already making his own big, hard ball of snow and launched it into the air in George's direction. The older boy had just seen it coming and ducked out of the way, and it ended up hitting Snape in the back of the head with a loud 'THUD!'

Harry knew he was going to be in so much trouble, especially after his professor had just helped him. "I'm so sorry sir, it was an accident it was supposed to hit George!" As the snow was falling off the back of his head and running down his hair and robes, Snape slowly turned around. The movement was almost zombie-like and accompanying it was the most evil and menacing look they had ever seen on their teacher's pale face.

Harry was terrified! "Mr Potter you are going to regret that!" He slowly stalked towards a petrified Harry, and quickly whipped out his wand. Within seconds a snowball the size of Hagrid had grown right before their eyes, and Harry was so frightened that he couldn't move. Snape lifted it a metre above Harry's head and flicked his wand, releasing his evil creation so it fell directly onto Harry.

With another wave of his wand the boy's head, arms and legs were sticking out of their snowy enclosure and he was hovering just above the ground. Harry could see that Snape wasn't mad or angry, but he appeared to be very amused. "Now", he said, "I want the eight of you to throw snowballs at Mr Potter." Snape was smirking.

"Hey, that's not fair!" Harry cried out in protest, but no one was listening. Harry noticed the shadow of a smile on his professor's face, and, for some reason, relaxed a bit. Snape slightly moved his wand and Harry started spinning around randomly, forwards, backwards and every other way possible, and seconds later all of his friends were throwing snowballs at him. Ron started laughing uncontrollably when one of his hit Harry on the nose.

All the Gryffindors were laughing, including Harry and Snape eventually freed him. Everyone looked at Snape who looked like he would burst out laughing at any second, he even had to look away to hide the overwhelming amusement evident on his face. He composed himself and turned back, and was greeted with a snowball to his chest. He knew without a doubt that it was Harry.

For a second Harry and his friends thought Snape was going to start yelling, judging by the look of pure rage on his face, but instead he started laughing. Harry didn't know if he should be relieved or scared, after all, his nasty, cruel, sour potions professor was laughing uncontrollably. He was laughing so hard that his knees and head were bent, on hand on his knee, the other across his stomach because he had laughing pains. Harry Potter, Snape's most hated student, had made him laugh! Everyone else joined in.

When the laughter died down, Snape used his wand to send out a wave of snowballs, knocking all of his students down. The snowball fight that ensued led well into the afternoon until it was time to return to the castle. "Remember," Snape said, pointing to the Gryffindors, "no one must know about this."

Professor Snape put his 'serious' face on and Harry, Ron, Hermione, George, Fred, Ginny, Neville, Seamus and Dean chuckled before making it look like they had just finished a horrible detention. Although they couldn't tell anyone about their days events, they knew that their potions professor actually had a sense of humour, and a heart.

**I know it's not great or anything, but it made me a hell of a lot happier that day. I didn't even realise but I was sort of half smiling half laughing while I was writing it, and I was getting some really hilarious looks from some of the other people in my course. Haha oh well. **

**I'm happy for people to leave reviews, writing is definitely not a strong point for me but other than reading other fanfiction stories it's pretty much all I like doing. If you can think of any ways that I can improve please let me know so I can improve any stories I write in the future.**

**Thank you everyone and enjoy your day/night!**


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